A Story of Food, Love, and Compromise

Falafel Burger Flirtation

My blood may be mostly Scandinavian, my appearance may be Irish-dominant, but in my heart I’m way more exotic. Sometimes my heart is Greek, sometimes it’s Italian, and every now and then it flirts with the Middle East. This Middle Eastern flirtation began, as with many food discoveries, in my college cafeteria. The hit-or-miss “Grains” (read: vegetarian) line was suspiciously popular one day, so I decided to investigate. The overwhelmed student worker filled my plate with the donut-hole sized fried balls that my classmates were clamoring after, topped with a mysterious tangy white sauce.

It was love at first falafel. With some googling, I learned that my dear falafels were just a magically balanced blend of chickpeas and spices, rolled into balls and fried to a golden brown. The mysterious white sauce, tzatziki, would later become an obsession of mine on a study-abroad trip to Greece, but this first taste in my MN homeland was what started the tzatziki and falafel fever.

Post-graduation, there were several attempts at recreating the cafeteria falafel experience: boxed mixes that tasted…boxed, scratch-made recipes that made my falafel balls collapse and break so they were balls no more, and an overly fried, poorly seasoned falafel stick at the MN State Fair. Nothing was up to snuff. In fact, nothing even came close, until one fateful day when I stumbled across a falafel burger recipe from Rachel Ray. So, today I bring you the best falafel recipe I’ve found over the past 4 years, along with a quick tzatziki lime sauce that, when drizzled over top, is sure to make your heart feel Middle Eastern, even if you are but a petite Irish Scandinavian.

After you rinse your chickpeas, pat them dry. If you don’t pat them dry, they’ll have too much moisture and the patties will be more difficult to handle.

Combine the chickpeas, onion, garlic, spices, flour, and salt and pepper in a bowl. If you have a large enough food processor, you can combine the ingredients in there. My food processor is itty bitty, so I had to process in waves.

Whatever your food processor size may be, make it work and process the ingredients until the consistency is thick and smooth.

Form four large patties from the smooth mixture. Wipe down your food processor, then add two pieces of bread, torn into chunks. Add the garlic salt, and process until you have fine crumbs. Pour into a bowl, and dredge the patties (carefully) in the crumbs one-by-one.

If you want to make things easier on yourself, refrigerate the patties for 30 minutes. This part isn’t absolutely necessary, but it will make the cooking step a cinch instead of a falafel fatality. Choose your danger level.

While the patties are firming up in the fridge, get your tzatziki together. Combine the yogurt, cucumber, olive oil, dill, garlic, and lime juice in the food processor, and pulse until smooth.

I know, I know, tzatziki usually has lemon juice, but a touch of lime works perfectly with these burgers. You can use lemon if you want, but I was flying by the seat of my falafel, and I liked it.

Pour 1/4 cup olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat, then add two of the patties and cook for 3 or 4-minutes on each side. Remove the patties and place on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil, then repeat with the remaining two burgers.

To assemble your burger, pour a couple spoonfuls of tzatziki sauce in the pita, add the burger, tomatoes, romaine, and any leftover cucumber, if you so please. Top with some more tzatziki sauce, and boom, your delicious falafel burger pocket is ready for chow down time.

Oh falafel heaven, I’ve found you once again. This burger is huge, for starters. Like, I probably could have made 6 normal-sized burgers, but I didn’t want a normal-sized burger. Nope, I wanted a huge, falls apart in your hands, drips tzatziki sauce all over your face, nostalgic mouthful of deliciousness. And that is just what I had. If you’re a falafel fiend like me, you simply must try this.

You may be wondering, “What’s the beast’s take on falafel burgers?” Well, my hunch is that he would love these, because they’re big, flavorful, and packed with a variety of ingredients, which usually adds up to a WIN in his eyes. I will likely make them again to share, but truth-be-told I intentionally waited until he left town to take on the falafel. I could lie and say my timing simply allowed for experimentation and potential falafel failure, but the reality? I just wanted leftovers for lunch this week. Selfish? Maybe, but what am I supposed to do? Sometimes a girl’s gotta follow her [Middle-Eastern] heart.

Thank you! You should give this recipe a try and let me know what you think. And yes, I do live in MN! There’s a great falafel place that opened in Dinkytown a few years ago, but that’s the closest I’ve come to finding good falafel around here. I hope you have some good options in your new town!

Hooray, falafel! I keep meaning to make it at home, but I never have–largely because we have no food processor. What do you think about using a heavy-duty blender? I’d be a little worried about the lack of liquid…

Hi Eileen! A blender may work if you just do small batches at a time. If you do too much at a time I’m afraid it would all get stuck and not blend evenly. But, it’s worth a try! If you start and it all doesn’t get blended perfectly, you could probably mash the rest and just have a less smooth patty…which would actually be pretty good. If you try it let me know how it goes!